Microsoft Issues First Production Release Of Its CBL-Mariner 2.0 Linux Distribution

[RahulSundaram]

Wow, I didn't know that, so Microsoft developers contribute to systemd now?

Sure. Phoronix even covered that. Microsoft routines hires open source contributors now (Including the founder of Python and an entire team working on Python performance upstream for example). Azure is their growth business and it's mostly Linux. So it makes a lot of business sense.

[jacob]

You are absolutely right - but I did not make an argument about ill code entering FOSS code ...
my argument is about fostering monopoly power and about conspiracy about monopolies/oligopolies
working together to destroy new competitors.
Well, this is MS term (cancer) - I would prefer to use "changing the company as was done with AT&T" -
no communism, no cancer, just for competition! And this was a good thing, right?
What would happen if this would be done with MS, Apple, Google, Facebook, ... you name it.
So my argument is along the line: could "FOSS is good for monopolies" be the truth - which would
not be a good thing after the FSF (at least in the founding state - but not sure right now; as FSF is
dominated by ... guess what).
So the GPL may end to no longer be a free license if it was not a fixed GPL version - so not a big
problem for Linux, which is in fact open source and not free software as the freedom part is typically
not fought in court - and if only to get derived code as open source.
And this may get a trend - so monopolies can easily use such SW to enslave customers - this is
possible with open source - only free software is fighting this.
And "Embrace, Extent, Extinguish" is well known ... what was the name of the company using it ...
yes, the same which got famous by "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" (like in 'free software' is cancer) or
"Vapoware" or "Piracy" (double sense - calling children thieves and stealing code/IP from competitors).
But fortunately this company is not involved here ... oh, wait!

But Free (as in speech) software and monopoly are mutually exclusive by definition. No-one can assert monopoly power over a software project while maintaining a free licence. They can be as monopolistic as it gets in regards to OTHER technology, but with Linux and other GPL/LGPL projects, it's strictly impossible. Even Linus Torvalds couldn't monopolise Linux if he wanted to. Once the code is out in the open and under a free licence, they can't stop anyone from forking it. By the same token, with a GPL licence, they can't really pursue the EEE strategy either because they would only face the choice between not releasing their version (thus no EEE possible in the first place), or release it openly and under the GPL (the Extinguish phase goes out if the window). Microsoft is very pragmatic and they are no fools. If they contribute to FOSS and behave like good denizens of the community, it's because they figured that this is how they can make money with Linux, after they tried and failed to kill it with FUD and with EEE.

[sinepgib]

You are absolutely right - but I did not make an argument about ill code entering FOSS code ...
my argument is about fostering monopoly power and about conspiracy about monopolies/oligopolies
working together to destroy new competitors.
Well, this is MS term (cancer) - I would prefer to use "changing the company as was done with AT&T" -
no communism, no cancer, just for competition! And this was a good thing, right?
What would happen if this would be done with MS, Apple, Google, Facebook, ... you name it.
So my argument is along the line: could "FOSS is good for monopolies" be the truth - which would
not be a good thing after the FSF (at least in the founding state - but not sure right now; as FSF is
dominated by ... guess what).
So the GPL may end to no longer be a free license if it was not a fixed GPL version - so not a big
problem for Linux, which is in fact open source and not free software as the freedom part is typically
not fought in court - and if only to get derived code as open source.
And this may get a trend - so monopolies can easily use such SW to enslave customers - this is
possible with open source - only free software is fighting this.
And "Embrace, Extent, Extinguish" is well known ... what was the name of the company using it ...
yes, the same which got famous by "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" (like in 'free software' is cancer) or
"Vapoware" or "Piracy" (double sense - calling children thieves and stealing code/IP from competitors).
But fortunately this company is not involved here ... oh, wait!

Sorry, who dominates the FSF now? You know Linux is not related to the FSF in any sense, right?

[JMB9]

Of course MS engages with FOSS projects because they have something to gain from it. Just like.... everyone. Linus Torvalds created Linux initially for himself, RedHat and IBM fund a lot of Linux development because they make money with it, Intel, AMD and ARM contribute massively because they would never be able to sell their CPUs without good Linux support, Google, Facebook, Amazon etc contribute because they need an OS to run their data centers, etc. Even the individual spare time hacker who patches something does it to suit his or her personal needs. The important point here is that while they all usually are monopolistic companies in some aspects, the copyleft nature of the (L)GPL ensures that here, if they want to benefit from Linux and other GPL/LGPL products, they have to play by the rules. And because they really need Linux, they do it and everyone benefits.

By the same token, the AOMedia consortium wasn't formed and didn't develop AV1 out of some selfless idealism, they did it so that they could make megabucks with digital video without having to pay royalties for MPEG-LA's patents. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a valuable piece of technology and a much appreciated contribution to the FOSS ecosystem.

Yes, in line with my thoughts.
But FOSS has an F - freedom - which is freedom of users, not IP creators.
So is such participation (including paying money) fostering monopoly in a way competitors may have big trouble -
or users getting problems (which is fought by free software movement - the real one!).
As given above - there are some real problems in the structure of FSF - and GPL is not applied fully concerning Linux, which
should be regarded open source - and it really is labeled that way now.
If people embrace and extent to make users depending on their product, this is ok with Linux.
LLVM is also open source ...
Look at free software - still existing - still growing?
What happens if free software is no longer existing?
Is important parts are no longer available ... and only an OS based in Linux by ... is able to work on HW ...
How many times a company had forgotten to create a proper Linux driver or Linux distros can not boot - there was alway
one company called (not the one of HW with missing/incomplete driver) and directly thereafter the problem was solved.
Miracle!
And that company was ...
So no, we had been in trouble several times before due to such tactics ... and this could soon get much worse.
Due to the nice participation of such companies - not due to additions to Linux - but due to teaming with other companies
or with changes of design not easily accessible.

[jacob]

Yes, in line with my thoughts.
But FOSS has an F - freedom - which is freedom of users, not IP creators.
So is such participation (including paying money) fostering monopoly in a way competitors may have big trouble -
or users getting problems (which is fought by free software movement - the real one!).
As given above - there are some real problems in the structure of FSF - and GPL is not applied fully concerning Linux, which
should be regarded open source - and it really is labeled that way now.
If people embrace and extent to make users depending on their product, this is ok with Linux.
LLVM is also open source ...
Look at free software - still existing - still growing?
What happens if free software is no longer existing?
Is important parts are no longer available ... and only an OS based in Linux by ... is able to work on HW ...
How many times a company had forgotten to create a proper Linux driver or Linux distros can not boot - there was alway
one company called (not the one of HW with missing/incomplete driver) and directly thereafter the problem was solved.
Miracle!
And that company was ...
So no, we had been in trouble several times before due to such tactics ... and this could soon get much worse.
Due to the nice participation of such companies - not due to additions to Linux - but due to teaming with other companies
or with changes of design not easily accessible.

Why would free software stop existing? How could that even happen? How would someone erase all Linux, GNOME, gcc etc. repositories from existence? My point is that from a user's freedom point of view, it changes absolutely nothing if a free software project is developed by two fans in their spare time or by a multibillion corporation. So long the corporation can't change the licence, the users always have their four freedoms. It's important to remember that those four freedoms are all the free software movement ever promised and that users ever had. Nothing else, nothing more, nothing less.

In particular, free software gives you a right to compete but not an entitlement to be a successful competitor. You have the right to fork but not the entitlement to have your fork acknowledged and catered for by other developers. You have the right to modify the software to suit your needs but not the entitlement that other (bigger, wealthier, more powerful) entities should take notice.

That's what I meant in another post that free software is not excluded from economics 101. Ultimately it's a capitalistic free market and free software doesn't change that. It was never intended to change that. All it does is to make free market more free.

[sinepgib]

But FOSS has an F - freedom - which is freedom of users, not IP creators.
So is such participation (including paying money) fostering monopoly in a way competitors may have big trouble -
or users getting problems (which is fought by free software movement - the real one!).

But here's where I think most FOSS users get it wrong: there's no distinction between user and developer in FOSS. You have your own agency, that's the point of the license. You have the means to fix the issues. It's a choice to do so, and it's a choice to not do so.
You, the user, can be as much an IP creator as MS is. The fact they get to mandate by sending patches and we just eat the crumbs speaks much more of us, the community, than of them.

As given above - there are some real problems in the structure of FSF - and GPL is not applied fully concerning Linux, which
should be regarded open source - and it really is labeled that way now.

In what way is it not applied fully?

If people embrace and extent to make users depending on their product, this is ok with Linux.
LLVM is also open source ...
Look at free software - still existing - still growing?
What happens if free software is no longer existing?

The question is how could that happen really. MS may enslave all the software community but can't stop us from writing our own code and making our own forks. So, let's ask who forgot the tenets of free software first. It's not the ones who never claimed to be for freedom.
Discursive fights get nowhere. Actions are what matter. Most FLOSS advocates lack in action, because discourse is effortless and action is not.

Is important parts are no longer available ... and only an OS based in Linux by ... is able to work on HW ...
How many times a company had forgotten to create a proper Linux driver or Linux distros can not boot - there was alway
one company called (not the one of HW with missing/incomplete driver) and directly thereafter the problem was solved.
Miracle!
And that company was ...

They didn't need any kind of agreement for that (even tho there's evidence they did coerce OEMs to have Windows preinstalled, but that's another story).
Hardware providers didn't write drivers for Linux for consumer products because it was always a fringe market. Selling 100 devices sold to hobbyists won't get you the salary of the developers for the Linux driver back. Selling 1000000 devices will certainly give you a profit over the salaries of developers for the Windows drivers.
I don't think that's too hard to understand.
The only kind of evil we need for monopolies to rise and for companies to only cater to those monopolies is regular old individualism. You don't need a great conspiracy.

So no, we had been in trouble several times before due to such tactics ... and this could soon get much worse.
Due to the nice participation of such companies - not due to additions to Linux - but due to teaming with other companies
or with changes of design not easily accessible.

So, here's the thing. Another worthless cloud distribution won't really change the sight at all. For a simple matter of profit incentives.
Azure is already a second player to Amazon. MS, right now, needs to invest in compatibility because they need to incentivize companies to migrate to them, migration requires compatibility to be affordable. Only AWS can right now take the luxury of breaking compatibility with others because they are the dominant player in the cloud, by too far. That's why GCP gives you a better experience than AWS when working with k8s: k8s is standard and thus the ones likely to move from AWS to another service. Hardcore users of the more proprietary part will stick to AWS and never leave, but k8s works in both.
CBL is useful for MS just in terms of offering an officially supported distro for Azure, but it isn't likely to contain secret sauce (the second E in EEE) because it would harm only them to make devs lives harder due to forcing conversion of all their existing infra. Because, again, they're second, not leader in that market, they need to encourage migration rather than discourage it.
The tactics MS used in the past concerned more their old business model where their focus was consumer and business end user. Windows is no longer their flagship, so they don't need too many of the dirty tactics they used back then for it to dominate. Now they aim for the cloud and the user data. Windows certainly helps, but is mostly a way to get that data, and even Bing helps a lot anyway. They also have an incentive to play well with Linux in the desktop precisely because a bigger portion of desktop users (the hardware where you actually get to choose your software) are developers now, working on web backends and frontends, who need their code to behave similarly on their computers as in the cloud, which is a big ball of Linux all the way down. That's also why they made WSL, so they could have their cake and eat it, get the data while playing well with web devs.
And besides, the fact the three biggest cloud players are also big Linux players and the competition of each other pretty much balances the field. MS can't simply break everything because Amazon and Google won't allow it, and likewise MS won't allow those two to do the same.

[Danielsan]

So this will be the foundations where building up Windows Desktop as service, another great achievement for Linux...